Every week at SiftPop.com, we challenge our writers to choose what they think is the best movie under a certain topic related to a recent release. So this week, with the release of Beau Is Afraid, which stars Joaquin Phoenix, we’re counting down our favorite movies starring the Oscar-winning actor! Let us know @SiftPop what your ranking is!
What is the best movie about family? Yeah… not any of the Fast films. Ron Howard caught a special spark with a little film he made called Parenthood. This perfectly balanced drama captures so many dynamics in engaging and moving ways. With a little help from Randy Newman, Howard created a charming and endearing look at three generations of the Buckman family. We get quiet and trauma-suffering grandchildren, like Joaquin Phoenix, and rebellious teens, like Martha Plimpton. There is a group of adult siblings with all their own problems. The tall-tale-shoveling, grifting brother, Tom Hulce. Dianne Wiest is a struggling single mom. Harley Jane Kozak struggles with an overbearing husband (oddly enough, Rick Moranis). But it is Steve Martin who carries this film with a genuine and moving performance as a man just trying to be a better dad than his own (Jason Robards). This ensemble is huge, and there are plenty of moving pieces, but Howard balances them expertly to deliver one of the best family dramas you are going to find. (Shane Conto)
Few entries in Joaquin Phoenix’s filmography are as visceral of an experience as You Were Never Really Here. Written and directed by Lynne Ramsey (We Need to Talk about Kevin and Ratcatcher), it finds Phoenix in the role of a traumatized veteran who tracks down missing girls for a living. It’s a complex role for the actor, one which earned him a Best Actor win at the Cannes Film Festival. While he’s playing a protagonist with a mission you can get behind, the brutality of his methods can be hard to stomach at times. To call this movie dark would be an understatement, and it’s certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. However, if it’s a tone you can stomach, it’s a showcase for Phoenix’s talent, and well worth the sub-90-minute time investment. (Jake Bourgeois)
Coming off the success of 2002’s Signs, M. Night Shyamalan once again teamed up with Joaquin Phoenix to bring us our next helping of 100-plus minutes of tension and twists. Rather than the stand up and swing away performance in Signs, in 2004’s The Village, we see a far more subdued character from Phoenix in the form of Lucius Hunt. Gravely wounded following the worst 19th century style congratulations-on-your-nuptials visit from learning disabled townmate Noah (Adam Brody), Hunt is bedridden and facing certain death, unless someone can brave the monsters that roam the forest surrounding the village and retrieve medicine from another town. Despite being blind, Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), armed only with her love for, and determination to save, Lucius (oh, and really handy information from her father, played by the wonderful Brendan Gleeson), is more than ready for the challenge. Even though once he is wounded, Phoenix’s role is primarily lying in bed slowly fading, he still turns in an overall enjoyable performance, especially early on when pushing back against authority in the village, walking that narrow line between respectful challenge and dissent. He and Howard also manage to pull off a believable, awkward young couple, just tiptoeing around expressing their feelings. Regardless of your ultimate thoughts on the final twist, you have to admit The Village manages to deliver some great moments of tension, especially with the pit in the forest! (Matt Lawson)
C’mon C’mon excels in the unique style of being simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. It depends almost entirely on the chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman, and they play great off each other. Phoenix stars as a radio journalist named Johnny who, while still grieving the loss of their mother, reconnects with his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) and his nephew Jesse (Norman). When Viv needs to travel to help her estranged husband who is struggling with bipolar disorder, Johnny agrees to take care of Jesse, and winds up taking him on a cross-country trip. Norman is brilliant, perfectly blending the comedy and drama. He is consistently funny, but the sadness and frustration with his family situation is always lurking behind his eyes. Phoenix is equally compelling in his most touching role ever as Johnny, as he gradually opens up and comes to need the relationship with his nephew after starting as a reluctant caretaker. The parallels with caring for a deteriorating parent and for a child are intriguing. When Johnny indulged their mother’s delusions, Viv got upset. When dealing with fictional scenarios from Jesse, it’s the opposite. Writer and director Mike Mills chose to shoot in black and white to highlight the symbolic and expressionistic qualities, and it pays off. Plus, the cinematography showcasing cities like Detroit, Los Angeles and New Orleans is dynamic in black and white. Understated, sympathetic and uplifting, C’mon C’mon pulls off the rare feat of being a feel-good drama. (Jason Mack)
M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs is about Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), an ex-reverend who leaves his faith after his wife is killed in car accident. Shyamalan never fails to showcase his supernatural sci-fi plots with sprinkles of religion. Do things happen just by chance, or is there a divine plan behind them? This is the central theme of this pro-faith movie. Graham lives on a farm with his two children, and is supported by his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). Each scene gets more intense with the clever suspicion. While there are some funny moments with the family, the film sticks to its dark tone. The characters are well-rounded and developed, so you can easily figure them out. Graham is an excellent example as he deals with his wife’s death, and his guilt over leaving his churchgoers. Gibson shows a powerful moment of vulnerability when he cries during a dinner scene, displaying powerful emotion. That scene shows that people can be vulnerable during grief. Shyamalan leaves Signs’ interpretation up to viewers: Maybe it tries to get them to think about finding faith and religion. If you are into supernatural mystery thrillers, then Signs is the film for you. (Christian Grullon)
A fairly underrated gem, To Die For doesn’t get enough love or time in the limelight. For a movie released in 1995, it’s quite prescient of people’s modern attitudes, specifically when it comes to social media fame. Nicole Kidman plays Suzanne Stone, an ambitious self-starter with dreams of being on TV, and whose husband has been killed at the start of the film. She starts working as the weatherperson for the local TV station, and meets a small group of teenagers (one of whom is played by an effectively creepy Joaquin Phoenix) when she she goes to speak at their school. To Die For is a nice mix between Gone Girl and Sunset Blvd. in its plotting, and the performances from Kidman and a younger Phoenix sell the mystery and the tone. (Robert Bouffard)
Prior to 2005, most of us only really knew Joaquin Phoenix for giving Maximus an enthusiastic thumbs down in Gladiator, wanting to trek through the terror-filled woods in The Village, and being the long-haired kid Keanu caught “slapping the salami” in Parenthood (“No offense”). Walk the Line changed all that in a big way. Not gonna lie: when Walk the Line debuted, I initially watched for Reese Witherspoon, and she completely blew me away with her portrayal of June Carter. Phoenix, however, isn’t just playing Johnny Cash; he’s embodying the raven-haired country rocker. Witherspoon may have won the Oscar, but Phoenix is definitely holding his own throughout his journey of both the highs and lows of Cash’s career and personal life. Even more impressive than the electrifying chemistry between Phoenix and Witherspoon is that they perform all the songs themselves. Not having the need to be dubbed or cut away to show other peoples’ hands playing the instruments adds another layer of depth to what are already stellar performances. If you liked last year’s Elvis, enjoy the music of Johnny Cash, or just have a soft spot for biopics, it’s time to Joaq the Line. (Patrice Downing)
When Paul Thomas Anderson makes a film, we all take notice. And when PTA says a movie out of his filmography is his favorite, you immediately put it on the top of the queue. The first time I saw The Master, I was reminded of how great of a storyteller Anderson is. He’s mastered (pun intended) how to write about interesting characters and a dynamic story that captivates you from the start. In this case, The Master brings some of the best performers together to bring the characters to life. With a hodgepodge of different inspiration from various people, The Master tells the story of Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), who is discovers a new life with Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a group called the Cause. If you are looking for an example of the power of acting, The Master should be the definition of what someone can achieve with the right backing. Phoenix, Hoffman, and Amy Adams are all electric in their roles, and PTA has never been better. (Mike Hilty)
If you were to ask a serious movie fan what their favorite Joaquin Phoenix performance was, it could be any number of films. He’s had a long and diverse career. But I believe if you were to ask the average person on the street which of his roles was their favorite, “the bad guy from Gladiator” would likely be the most common response. A movie from over 20 years ago, amongst a career of incredible works, would still be the movie the average person knows him for. Gladiator wasn’t the first movie for many of the stars, but it certainly helped launch some careers. Who knows the career Phoenix would have had if he hadn’t been the despicable Commodus. Russell Crowe quickly became one of THE leading Hollywood actors. Connie Nielsen, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi all pitch in their talents to round out the cast. Not to mention, Gladiator almost singlehandedly resurrected sword-and-sandal movies, a sub-genre that had largely been extinct for 30-40 years in Hollywood. It won Best Picture! This was a massive movie. I feel like it holds a bit of the “your dad’s favorite movie” baggage nowadays, which I think is a smidge unfair. It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s also still a monumental cinematic achievement that left me awestruck upon rewatch 20 years later. (Nashua Doll)
Her is a fascinating film. When I first heard the premise, I didn’t think for a second it would work whatsoever, but then I saw the cast and the director, I got more hopeful. But that’s not what makes this fascinating for me. No, it is the fact that the film may play better today, 10 years after its release, given how AI and various different sites (cough, ChatGPT, cough) have blown up. Where Her succeeds is making us understand everything about Phoenix’s character first, before we get to the “modern” love story, shall we say, because this film doesn’t work if your lead actor doesn’t deliver. You can play it too straight or too silly, and everything gets lost in the translation, or, in this case, memory circuits. But Joaquin knows what he’s doing, and delivers one of his finest performances. On top of that, we have a stellar supporting cast (Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pratt), and when the AI voice is portrayed by Samantha Morton, I mean Scarlett Johansson, you may start to understand why Joaquin’s character would fall for that AI. Her is worth a watch now more than ever. (*If you don’t know who Morton is and what this joke means, I would recommend reading IMDb trivia for this movie and imagining being her). (Luke Burian)
Inherent Vice
Joaquin Phoenix is one of our greatest actors, and with that comes an incredible range of roles he can play. One of his most interesting to date is that of private eye Larry “Doc” Sportello, the main character in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice. Adapted from the Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name, the film is a wild, insane, hazy ride, as Doc sorts through all kinds of characters to find his ex-girlfriend and her new, rich boyfriend. I’ll admit, as a huge fan of Anderson’s work, this is my least favorite of his films. Giving it a second chance, I still kind of feel this way, but I do find the Phoenix performance interesting. Usually, his character is the one who people are reacting to, based on the way he acts or things he says. But Doc is a different character for him, as he wades through the criminal underground of Southern California and reacts to a lot of interesting characters himself. The performance is almost that of a straight man, and Phoenix is almost never filling that role these days. So, even though I find Inherent Vice to be too long and convoluted, the Phoenix performance really makes the film interesting to me. (Jacob Kinman)
Hotel Rwanda
2004’s Hotel Rwanda is a powerful film that takes place in 1994 during the Rwandan Genocide. It tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a hotel manager who becomes an unlikely hero when he houses over a thousand Tutsi in his hotel. To say this film is great at building tension is an understatement. There are several times where you will be holding you breath during intense situations. Cheadle is superb, and deserved the Oscar nomination for this performance. While there are scenes that are horrific and saddening, the warmth of the human spirit can be viewed in this film brilliantly. Hotel Rwanda will tear your heart out , but at the same time, be inspiring for its showcase of selflessness. (Joe Vargas)
Joker
Comic book films often illustrate the fantastical circumstances of a superhero’s origin, but rarely do they focus the lens solely on the antagonist of the genre, and reveal that a villain can be born of tragedy inflicted upon them, coupled with a few bad days strung together. As an audience, we can never get enough of a great bad guy, but we’re usually only given fleeting glimpses. Not so in Joker, Todd Phillips’ hypnotically perverse, viscerally unsettling masterpiece. Even if you revere Heath Ledger’s performance as the maniacal Clown Prince of Crime in The Dark Knight, as indeed do I, you must respect the dark recesses of the human soul probed by Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a deeply disturbing, career-defining performance that earned him the Best Actor Academy Award. There’s a heavy uneasiness, a thick stench of dread that permeates every minute of the movie’s runtime, and what unfolds on screen will leave you questioning how much of what you watched was real, and how much was simply the machinations of the shattered psyche of a man clawing desperately at a society that abandoned him, all while wrestling with the heartbreaking reality that the worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t. Even as we’re reluctant to allow Arthur’s heinous antics to invade our minds, in addition to condemnation, there’s no denying that we also feel sympathy for his circumstance, or at least we want to understand it. (Jonathan Fedee)
Two Lovers
There’s always been something uniquely off about Joaquin Phoenix’s persona, and James Gray’s Two Lovers is the first movie that really tapped into it (his two followup movies being I’m Still Here and The Master solidify that notion). It’s the story of a lonely, divorced man (Phoenix) who lives at his parents house and is looking for some sort of direction. He meets two women (Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw), and immediately falls for both of them for different reasons. Gray approaches the well-worn romantic dramedy genre (much more drama than comedy in this case), and infuses a different point of view. Two Lovers ends with a clear yet devastating message, and it’s largely thanks to Phoenix’s performance that it works. (Robert Bouffard)
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Although it isn’t one of the flashiest or most acclaimed, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot as the recently quadriplegic, recovering alcoholic, cartoonist John Callahan is among the most engaging of his career. Non-linearly covering years of John’s rehabilitation — both from the car crash that cost him his mobility, and the alcoholism that cost him darn near everything else — we get to watch along as he makes amends, and learns to live again. Phoenix really shines in this role, his unique sense of charm bringing a sense of endearment to what would often be a deeply obnoxious and unlikeable character. Jonah Hill is outstanding in a supporting role as John’s sponsor, and the cast is rounded out by the likes of Jack Black and Rooney Mara. Although it does sometimes dip into the overly sentimental atmosphere that biopics often revel in, this one has enough unique to provide to make it worth the watch. (Jake Hjort)
The Sisters Brothers
How do you shake up a western? This is a genre that has been part of our cultural landscape for over 100 years, so many things have been done. How about a tale about two bickering brothers? Sounds like a good start. And they are hunting down a controversial and dangerous figure. Sounds juicy so far. Cast those two brothers: John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix. That is an interesting duo. Phoenix is a manic and wild brother, and Reilly is the towering figure and one who has their stuff together. But those two names are not enough, because our antagonists are Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed. A great cast thrown into a western landscape with a dark and poignant, yet funny atmosphere makes The Sisters Brothers a genuinely unique experience. You might go into this film with some expectations, but this twisted tale has plenty to keep you on your toes. (Shane Conto)
We Own the Night
Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor. We can all agree and has some great films under his belt; but one of the films that stand out for me is We Own The Night. Taking place in the ‘80s, Bobby Green (Phoenix) is the owner of a club which is often frequent by gangsters. His big secret: His father, Bert Grusinsky (Robert DuVall), and his brother, Joseph (Mark Wahlberg), are in the NYPD. Bobby can no longer be neutral, so he joins forces with his brother when an attempted assassination leaves Joseph wounded. This is an intense film about where family and loyalty lie, thanks to the blows between brothers, son, and father, as Bobby deals with the tug of war from being the big guy in the city, to becoming a good guy. With the empire Bobby had built, he has to watch it all fall to make himself all over again. Thanks to an entertaining performance by Phoenix, we watch a man struggle with what’s right and wrong. He turns his back on everything he knows to show his true fealty is with family. With significant needle drops, ‘80s glitz and glam, mob mentality, and with a well-rounded cast, We Own The Night lives up to its potential. (Chantal Ashford)